Because the Catholic church wouldn't give him another divorce. Also, I suspect that he didn't want to have to be controlled by Rome. Being raised Catholic myself, I can't say I blame him much, though I don't necessarily agree w/ his reasons.
At the time of the reformation Pope Leo X was trying to keep all the friends/allies he could. So he was very interested in keeping Spain, a very Catholic country, on his good side. Henry VIII was married to a women who was Spanish royalty ( I'm having a brain freeze and can't remember who), who was not bearing him any sons, no heirs to the throne, and so when he asked for a divorce the pope told him no to keep Spain happy. Henry VIII really wanted the divorce, so he told the pope he was going to be the head of the church in England - he never really wanted to leave Catholicism, just wanted to have the authority to grant himself a divorce. Thereforth, the Church of England or Anglican church was created with Henry VIII at the head.
Short answer yes because he wanted a divorce. Before that he wanted to burn Lutherans.
It was Anne, and Henry's need for a living son to succeed him. Anne refused to be his mistress, having seen the rather shabby treatment her sister Mary had received at the King's hand.
Wolsey couldn't manage the divorce, the Queen refused to retire to a convent, saying that God's mission for her on Earth was as a wife and mother, the Queen's nephew Charles had the new Pope a prisoner, suddenly the heretic Luther didn't seem the villain Henry had thought he was when writing his "Defense of the Seven Sacraments".
I always thought it was funny how people of that era (hell, even this era) were so passionate about their religion that they fought wars over it and yet their own king was willing to throw over his religion for a woman!
He was madly in love with Anne Boleyn and wanted a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. At first he tried to get an annulment, saying the marriage was not legal, because Catherine had been his brother's widow. Also he needed an heir and Catherine was aging and could not bear him a son. Eventually, as the Pope, who supported Catherine, refused to give him a dispensation to divorce her, Henry declared himself the head of the Church in England.
By this means he not only obtained his divorce but gathered great wealth by dissolving all the Catholic Monasteries and Abbeys and placing their gold in his own coffers.
The Pope wouldn't give him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Luther wouldn't give him a divorce either. Thus the King whom the Pope had honored for defending Catholicism started his own church. As a bonus, Henry VII not only got himself his divorce - he also confiscated all the property of the Catholic church.
He didn't. He broke from the church of Rome because he wanted to be able to an null his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Also he wanted to get his hands on the church's wealth, which he did by dissolving the monasteries.
However, although he broke with the Church of Rome and made himself head of the Church of England, he never considered himself a Protestant, and protestants continued to be persecuted as heretics throughout the remainder of his reign. His last wife, Katherine Parr, got into trouble for try ind to defend the protestant heretic Anne Askew, who was one of those executed by Henry.
The Church was the only institution that kept kings in a leash at that time. The Parliament was Henry's servant
By rejecting the Church and becoming protestant, Henry declared himself the head of the English church. He was his own master and owed allegiance to no one
Why did Henry VIII consider Protestantism?
